The Pentagon review has significant political, military, financial and even legal implications for Britain, analysts have told the Guardian. It assumes Britain will be closely tied to the US without any influence on its military strategy, they say, while the UK and its European allies are left with the burden of peacekeeping.The US could in future be a "more comfortable partner" for Britain, says Colonel Christopher Langton of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, if it means there will be greater emphasis on "preventive threats rather than a heavy footprint". But this is only a part of the picture painted by the Pentagon. British military chiefs, MI5 and MI6 have never liked the idea of a war on terror. Now, they say, the concept of a long war gives a spurious legitimacy to international terrorists. The Pentagon makes clear the US will rely less and less on "static" alliances such as Nato. ... http://www.guardian.co.uk

Emergency rations paid for by taxpayers and distributed to Hurricane Katrina victims and military personnel to sustain them in their hour of need are being sold on eBay, according to a government report. A Government Accountability Office report released yesterday found that government-issued Meals Ready-to-Eat are being sold for profit on that site, and that at least some of the MREs were diverted from hurricane-relief efforts. Today ABC News found 83 military ration items on sale on eBay when searching for "Ready-to-Eat Meals" — almost all of them government rations and at least 14 of them from sellers claiming to be Katrina victims. ...http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=1619126&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

MORE photographs have been leaked of Iraqi citizens tortured by US soldiers at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad.Tonight the SBS Dateline program plans to broadcast about 60 previously unpublished photographs that the US Government has been fighting to keep secret in a court case with the American Civil Liberties Union.Although a US judge last year granted the union access to the photographs following a freedom-of-information request, the US Administration has appealed against the decision on the grounds their release would fuel anti-American sentiment.Some of the photos are similar to those published in 2004, others are different. They include photographs of six corpses, although the circumstances of their deaths are not clear. There are also pictures of what appear to be burns and wounds from shotgun pellets....http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/the-photos-america-doesnt-want-seen/2006/02/14/1139890737099.html

The message from General Peter Pace, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, was apocalyptic. "We are at a critical time in the history of this great country and find ourselves challenged in ways we did not expect. We face a ruthless enemy intent on destroying our way of life and an uncertain future." Gen Pace was endorsing the Pentagon's four-yearly strategy review, presented to Congress last week. The report sets out a plan for prosecuting what the the Pentagon describes in the preface as "The Long War", which replaces the "war on terror". The long war represents more than just a linguistic shift: it reflects the ongoing development of US strategic thinking since the September 11 attacks. Looking beyond the Iraq and Afghan battlefields, US commanders envisage a war unlimited in time and space against global Islamist extremism. "The struggle ... may well be fought in dozens of other countries simultaneously and for many years to come," the report says. ...http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1710062,00.html

More than 1,000 protesters burned a British flag Tue and the regional administration in Iraq's main southern province severed all ties with British authorities over video footage showing British soldiers allegedly beating and kicking Iraqi youths. In London, the British Defense Ministry announced the arrest of 2 more people in connection with the images. Another person apparently the man who shot the video was arrested Monday. Protesters, many of them supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, marched on the British Consulate in Basra, where they burned the flag and shouted slogans against the alleged abuse of the youths during a riot Jan. 10, 2004, in the southern city of Amarah. Protesters held banners reading "No, no to Tony Blair" and "Try the British soldiers involved in this aggression." With outrage over the video mounting, the governing council for Basra province, which includes Iraq's huge southern oil fields, announced it was cutting all ties with British military ...http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-02-14-iraq-british_x.htm?csp=34

The former head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy helped write a memorandum of law calling for dismissal of Espionage Act charges against two pro-Israel lobbyists, arguing that, in receiving leaked classified information and relaying it to others, they were doing what reporters, think-tank experts and congressional staffers "do perhaps hundreds of times every day." Viet D. Dinh, who helped draft the USA Patriot Act after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, has joined with lawyers defending Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, former employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), who last year became the first non-U.S. government employees to be indicted for allegedly violating provisions of the Espionage Act."Never has a lobbyist, reporter, or any other non-government employee been charged . . . for receiving oral information the government alleges to be national defense material as part of that person's normal First Amendment protected activities," ...http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/13/AR2006021301905_pf.html